


when you coming home

by clarakent (salazarastark)



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Dick Grayson, Post-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wakes & Funerals, but their ghosts hang over dick throughout the entire thing, clark and jason are not actually characters in that they appear in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 09:50:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/clarakent
Summary: Dick speaks to his father after five long years.





	when you coming home

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this is a fic that has been three years long in the making, started in 2016 and then abandoned. Thanks to the WIP Big Bang, I picked back up and finished it. It's not the fic I planned for, but by doing the bang, it made me realize things about this fic that I didn't want to see three years ago. I hope everyone enjoys. I have vague plans for a sequel, but a lot of my batfam feelings have changed over three years and a lot of my ideas were jossed by Justice League so I have no idea. Consider it a stand alone for now.
> 
> I want to thank Leo_Our_Q for betaing the finished work and susiecarter who was the first one to listen to these ideas in 2016 and really helped them grow.
> 
> [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake) made an amazing playlist for this fic that you can download [here](https://pennywaltzy.tumblr.com/post/187113992787/im-coming-home-a-fanfic-inspired-dick-grayson)
> 
> Title is from Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle"

There comes a time in every boy’s life when he realizes that his father is often haunted by the ghosts of his past. For Dick, that time had been three minutes after he met Bruce, with at least one reminder every day since. When Dick was younger, he would often do his best to make Bruce forget about those ghosts.

He still remembers those times; and he also remembers the way Bruce had always smiled at his efforts. It’s only looking back that Dick has realized those smiles had never reached Bruce’s eyes. He’d played along every time, but none of it had truly made a difference to him. Alfred had always encouraged Dick to try to get Bruce to reach out towards the world and try to let the light in. But as Dick got older, he’d learned better: he’d stopped trying to make Bruce forget the ghosts he already had, and started trying to make sure he didn’t gather any new ones.

(That’s why Dick had left Gotham, in the end. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of one day becoming like Bruce, unable to relax under the ever-watchful gaze of his ghosts.

Dick already feels Jason everywhere he goes. Even five years after leaving Gotham, that one is still with him. He never wants to acquire another.)

He had left for Blüdhaven for a summer, originally, just to learn how to stand alone. He had lived with Bruce since the man had adopted him when Dick was nine. He’d wanted to have a few months alone, a little time to settle all the thoughts in his head and regroup. Dick knows now that he never really planned on returning. If he had, he would have left something he cared about in Gotham.

(Something besides Bruce and Alfred, anyway. It’s not like Bruce would ever leave Gotham, and Alfred would never leave Bruce. Dick had to go; if he hadn’t done it then, he never would have.

And the only thing that could have stopped him would have been anchoring himself there with something he cared about – besides Bruce, besides Alfred. Besides Jason’s body, and Dick’s own belief that everything would be okay.)

He ended up finishing up his bachelor’s and joining the police force, and he’s become one of the B.P.D.’s best officers.

He can count the number of times he’s talked to Bruce in the last five years on one hand. The times that hadn’t been five minutes long, anyway, and prompted by the approach of midnight on Father’s Day, Christmas, or one of their birthdays, the heavy guilty awareness that they hadn’t talked to each other yet pushing one or the other of them to reach for a phone.

(Dick can’t remember John Grayson’s face without looking at a picture. But he could remember Bruce’s face clear as day whenever he wants to – and perhaps even more when he doesn’t.

He can’t remember how his father sounded when he spoke the Romani Dick’s grandmother had taught him; but he can remember the cadence of Bruce’s voice perfectly, the way it changes across the multitude of different languages Bruce has somehow learned, though Dick doesn’t know where or when he did, or even the true number of them.)

He’s never really thought about going back to Gotham, having settled himself in Blüdhaven. Not when he can remember that first glimpse of Jason’s body, broken and bloody and beaten. Not when he can remember Bruce’s face during the days after Jason was found. Not when even Alfred seemed to have quietly given up on helping Bruce move on. Dick can’t return to Gotham, not until it returns to itself.

And then Bruce, who seems to have spent his entire life looking at things and thinking, “I could fight that,” turns his gaze towards Superman.

*

Dick tries to comfort himself afterward, by reminding himself that Bruce is impossible to control when he’s got his mind set on something; and even if that weren’t true, Dick is not in any way responsible for him.

Dick has never been very good at comforting himself.

A part of Dick is glad that he had no idea what was going on until he saw the news. That he hadn’t known Bruce was making a colossal mistake until he’d turned on the TV and seen what was happening at the harbor.

That part is very small.

There’s a much bigger part of him that’s furious that Bruce hadn’t told Dick what was going to do. Oh, in the end the TV said that Batman had fought on Superman’s side against Doomsday, but Dick knows the truth. He knows Bruce; he knows that even the old Bruce would have been very unsure about Superman. Knows that Bruce would have distrusted him –but the old Bruce would have tried to meet with Superman first before making any moves against him.

(At least obvious, physical moves. Bruce would have made fifteen different subtle psychological moves against the man before they even met.)

But this new Bruce, the Bruce he’s heard about from Alfred during their monthly phone calls or over the random lunches they had together about three times a year, sounds like a “punch first, repress like hell second, think about it never” type of person.

The worst thing about it, at least to Dick, isn’t what Bruce did, but Dick’s reaction to it. His first thought upon seeing it. . . .

Well, admittedly the  _ first _ thought had been, “Ohmygosh, it's  _ Superman _ !” The second, though, was. . . .

Okay, that one was, “What the fuck are you doing, Bruce?”

But the third was definitely, “Why didn’t he call me? Why, after all we’ve been through, did he not think to talk to me?”

_ (‘I know I left, but I think I was just trying to see if you’d ask me to come back. I want to know why I wasn’t enough to make you happy. You choose me, you should have wanted me. I know now that’s not how depression with a side of PTSD really works, but why does it  _ feel _ like that? _

_ Why do I sometimes lie awake at night and want to cry? Why do sometimes I feel like I wished I never existed? Not that I want to die. But maybe I could have just . . . never been around in the first place. _

_ Why do I still feel like you replaced me with Jason? Why do I sometimes wake up and forget that he died? Why do I think for a second that I’m back in Gotham and everything is normal? _

_ It’s been five years. Why do I still think of  _ that _ as “normal”?’) _

The first thing he’d done after he saw the news was nothing. Dick had indulged in taking two days off work to play  _ Dragon Age  _ and eat crap, and generally do everything in his power to forget about Bruce and the hole that had just been reopened in Dick’s chest. It had been hugely irresponsible of him, but Dick just hadn’t been able to bring himself to care. He’d be back on the job in a couple days after his mental health break, and he’d go back to ignoring the pain he was feeling about Bruce. He’d get over it, and everything would go back to the way it had been.

(Besides – Superman has just died. Everyone at the BPD knows how much Dick loved him. A lot of the tears Dick swallows are because of him.

Just not all of them. And it’s not Superman who haunts Dick’s dreams.)

And it isn’t like Bruce has ever been cruel to him. He’s respected Dick’s desire for space and he never seems to have even thought about cutting Dick off financially.

(Dick’s apartment is nicer than the commissioner’s. No one knows he’s Bruce Wayne’s kid; Bruce never wanted Dick and Jason to grow up in the spotlight. Dick never has anyone over to his place. He picks up the tab on nights out and always pays for coffee when he can.)

Bruce has never said a word about the money he sends Dick’s way. He’s never given any sign that he wants it to stop. One time Dick had actually asked Alfred about it, and he still remembers Alfred’s reply.

“Master Bruce sees this as the only remaining way he can take care of you. Quite frankly, I think it would destroy him if you asked him to stop.”

Dick still hasn’t decided how he feels about that. Part of him is glad that Bruce still wants to take care of him in some way. Part of him wants Bruce to tell to grow the fuck up and take care of himself. Part of him wants Bruce to say that if Dick wants his money, Dick needs to move back in with him.

(Dick isn’t sure what he’d say in reply. Sometimes he’s glad it hasn’t happened, so he doesn’t have to find out.)

But then, after a few days, Dick becomes aware of something odd.

He hasn’t gotten over it.

*

He calls Alfred as soon as he wakes – at six in the morning, and he only fell asleep at two. It’s the day of Superman’s funeral and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to watch it.

(Superman meant something inexplicable to Dick, something he thought had been crippled when his parents died and then had breathed its last alongside Jason, but Superman had brought it back to life. Seeing the casket, watching the mourners, would kill that thing in a way that would prevent a second resurrection. He hasn’t told Alfred or Bruce about his feelings regarding Superman. He doesn’t think he could take hearing what their opinions are in return.)

He can’t talk to Bruce right now. Apparently, the hole in his chest can’t be papered over just by acting like he doesn’t feel the pain of it, and he doesn’t want to start trying to fill it like Bruce does with booze and drugs and beautiful young men and women.

So he calls Alfred instead, and he asks what Bruce is doing. Why that’s the first thing he thinks to ask, he doesn’t know. He just . . . he just wants to know if Bruce is in the Batcave, or subtly mocking businessmen in important meetings as “Bruce Wayne”, or on patrol. He wants to know if somehow life has moved on, if things are still normal.

But that’s not what Alfred says.

For some reason, they’re in Smallville, Kansas, at the Kent farm; and apparently there is a 9:50 flight leaving Blüdhaven for Wichita; and there will be a car waiting for him when he arrives.

He gets the hint.

He isn’t quite sure why he needs to wear a nice suit, though.

*

He arrives at the Kent farm five hours later. It’s around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and Alfred is waiting on the front porch of a house that looks like Norman Rockwell painted it into being. 

Despite the look, there’s a somber quality to the air, and Dick instantly knows that he has arrived at a funeral. The driver of the car pulls away as soon as Dick has climbed out and grabbed his suitcase.

Dick looks at Alfred with warning in his eyes and feels a low, burning fury in his chest. He has only been to two funerals in his life, Jason’s and his parents’.

(All his other family had died before he was born. It had just been John and Mary Grayson, and then it had been Bruce, Alfred, and Jason.)

Alfred doesn’t acknowledge the look. He just leads Dick to a car, and motions for Dick to get in. Dick throws his suitcase in the back and climbs into the passenger seat.

“What the hell, Alfred?” he asks, his voice a low growl. “Why did you tell me to come to some funeral in Kansas? Who the hell is this even for?”

“Clark Kent,” Alfred says crisply, undeterred.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“He was a reporter for the Daily Planet,” Alfred says. “He was a hard worker, and he used his position at the Planet to bring important issues to light whenever he could. He was a good man.

“You could,” Alfred adds gently, “almost call him ‘super’.”

*

Dick has never been angrier at Alfred. It’s not like Alfred knew Dick’s feelings about Superman. Dick has never posted anything on Facebook or Twitter about Superman, has never done anything in public but occasionally like or retweet or repost things about the latest people the alien had saved, and that only proved Dick didn’t entirely dislike him.

Alfred has absolutely no way of knowing how profoundly Dick respected Superman, or how essential it felt to Dick to not watch his funeral. That doesn’t stop Dick from hating the fact that Alfred hadn’t even bothered to explain why they were in Kansas until Dick had already arrived. It would have been awkward arriving at a funeral without knowing whose it was, but Dick still would have gone, for Bruce.

He thinks he would have, at least.

He doesn’t actually enter the service. Alfred looks at him with unreadable eyes as he himself steps through the door, but Dick ignores it. It feels wrong to go inside the sanctuary.

He looks at the service guide instead. Smallville United Methodist is the name of this church, and Dick suddenly wonders what makes Methodism different from any other part of Christianity. 

He thinks he believes in God; he certainly believes in a higher power. His parents were Christians, but he isn’t sure if they were any particular denomination. They’d simply worshipped in whatever church was closest to where the carnival had set up, and the carnival pastor (Dick couldn’t remember his name no matter how hard he tried) had led them in a service. There had never seemed to be much of a difference in the churches, and there never seemed to be a big difference in the worship either.

Bruce and Alfred didn’t seem to be religious in anyway. Dick had never bothered to ask when he was taken in, and they’ve never said anything. Jason was Catholic, he remembered finding him praying on his rosary a few times, but it’s not like God had done anything to save him, much like he hadn’t done anything to save Superman. 

Dick hears the drone of the preacher eulogizing Clark Kent. He says nothing of Superman, but that doesn’t surprise Dick. He’d be shocked if more than a handful of people knew. He opens the service guide to find a color picture of. . . .

Honestly, the most beautiful man Dick has ever seen. It’s candid, the man only wearing a plain white T-shirt and blue jeans as he looks into the camera with a huge smile. The setting sun behind him seems to make the man glow, and his blue eyes shine. His hair is tousled and slightly curly, and he looks . . . really fucking happy. Utterly different from every other picture of Superman Dick has ever seen, and yet he can fully believe that this man is him.

This man is Superman.

He’s also Clark Kent, who has a lot of people at his funeral – including Bruce and Alfred, though why they’re attending after everything that apparently went down before Doomsday, Dick isn’t sure.

This is a man who has a mother that won’t ever see him again. Who had a live-in girlfriend that he loved. Who had friends and family and a job he cared about. Who had a life.

Dick doesn’t know how long he looks at the picture, how long he thinks about Clark Kent and who he was; but he’s drawn out of reverie by the sound of the service finishing. Without thinking, he moves out of the entryway so he can prevent Bruce from seeing him.

Bruce and Alfred are in the procession of mourners. Dick’s pretty sure Bruce doesn’t see him, but Alfred meets eyes and nods towards the doors. Dick remembers the cemetery he saw right outside the church, and nods back.

He knows where to go.

*

Dick stands at the fringes of the ceremony. He watches them lower the simple, plain coffin into the plot. Bruce stands next to an older woman with red-rimmed eyes and Dick instantly knows this is Martha Kent. He feels a rush of sympathy for this woman, and he hopes Bruce is talking to her like human beings actually talk.

He hopes Bruce might start healing if he sees someone else heal.

Dick stands there, in the crisp autumn air, as the other mourners leave. Martha is one of the first to go once the pastor is done and the coffin is lowered. A beautiful woman, who Dick instantly knows is the hero the media has nicknamed “Wonder Woman”, the woman from the harbor, walks with her and another woman, a redhead. Martha and the redhead are clinging to each other, and Dick realizes this must be the girlfriend. He nods at them both as they pass, and he hopes they can see the sympathy on his face.

Other mourners follow, and eventually it’s just Dick, Bruce, and Alfred. Dick doubts Bruce knows he’s there, but Alfred turns to leave next, giving Dick another look as he walks past him.

Dick knows what he needs to do. He walks toward Bruce, fallen leaves crunching underneath his feet. He could easily do it silently, but some part of him wants Bruce to hear him, to know he’s coming.

He gets his wish. Bruce turns around, starting to say, “Alfred, what do you – ?” He cuts himself off as soon as he realizes who it is.

“Hello, Bruce,” Dick says, glad his voice isn’t wavering. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Bruce says slowly. “What are you doing here?”

“Alfred told me to come here. In my defense, I didn’t realize this was a funeral, especially not the funeral for Superman’s civilian identity. I probably wouldn’t have come if I had.”

“That’s probably why he didn’t tell you,” Bruce says with a wry smile, and for the first time in years, something blooms in Dick’s chest that feels a lot like  _ hope _ . Maybe he and Bruce will be okay.

“Did you know him long?” Dick asks, trying to keep this genial conversation moving along as he stops next to Bruce at the edge of the plot. The men who’ll be filling it in are standing off at a distance, obviously giving Bruce and Dick space, and they would have to have superhuman hearing to eavesdrop from that far away. “Were you friends?”

“No,” Bruce answers firmly, the tone making it clear he’s answering both questions at once.

Dick nods. “I liked Superman,” he says, hoping Bruce won’t say anything snide or blunt in response.

“I’m glad. You should have,” Bruce says, and Dick feels like he’s drawn a breath of fresh for the first time in years. Maybe, just maybe, things will be okay. Maybe Dick can finally be okay.

He should, of course, have known better than to get his hopes up; letting himself think things might get better is, in his experience, the surest indicator that something’s about to prevent it. In this case, it’s Dick’s own mouth, which says the one thing that Dick has been wondering since he saw the news.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

Bruce looks at him, his gaze infuriatingly understanding. He knows exactly what Dick’s talking about, and he’s just standing there saying nothing.

“Why didn’t you think of asking me to help you?”

“Dick. . .” Bruce’s voice is far too even. “I thought you didn’t want to be involved with this anymore. It’s been five years, and you can’t tell me you didn’t know Batman had continued operating in your absence. There was no reason to assume you’d have an issue with what was, to me, another in the field.”

It’s an infuriating answer, and the worst thing about it is that Bruce is right. He’s completely right. Dick has absolutely no good reason to be angry with Bruce for stating the facts as he understands them.

But that’s the thing about anger: it doesn’t listen to reason.

And as clear and calm as Bruce’s response is, it doesn’t satisfy. There was something different about Bruce’s confrontation with Superman, Dick thinks, and something is telling him Bruce  _ knows _ that. Something is telling him that there was some small part of Bruce that  _ wanted _ to call Dick for help, in a way he hadn’t wanted to do at any other time over the rest of that five years, and Dick actually does have some genuine right to be mad.

Dick is suddenly sure that the reason Bruce didn’t call him is because Bruce had known Dick would pick up.

Dick just doesn’t know why that would stop him.

Dick doesn’t say any of that, as much as he wants to. All he says, in a voice he hopes is just as even as Bruce’s was, is, “There’s a difference. You know it.”

“You chose to go,” Bruce says. “You left, and you made it clear you didn’t intend to come back. Superman and Doomsday . . . you’re right. That was different. But as different as it was for me, I had no reason to assume it would be different for you. I had no reason to assume you would consider it an exception to the rule.”

“Bullshit,” Dick says, and he can’t keep his voice calm anymore. He doesn’t want it to be. “You knew it would be different, and you didn’t want to deal with it. You didn’t call me because you blame yourself for what happened to Jason, and you did your damnedest to make sure I did too.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Bruce says, sharp and startlingly bitter. “You decided to leave home, and I couldn’t stop you –”

“How about talking about it?” Dick yells, tears abruptly pricking at the corners of his eyes. “How about remembering that you had two sons, and one of them might need your help mourning? How about not turning the house into some kind of mausoleum, suffocating the life out of us? How about not making me feel like the only way I’d ever breathe again was if I left? How about calling me? How about making me feel like I still  _ had _ a home?”

Bruce has turned away from him, and is now looking down at the grave at their feet. His face is impassive, his profile cutting and grim. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Tough shit,” Dick growls out. “I want to. I want to know why I feel like you left me when I know it was the other way around. I want to know why you thought that was a good idea.”

“It wasn’t,” Bruce says, so simply and plainly that Dick almost doesn’t register it. It catches him by surprise. He knows how to read Bruce and Dick knows when he honestly thinks that he was wrong. Bruce has never just admitted it. He manipulates and passive-aggressively makes you blame him for it. He’s never just . . . said it.

“What I did to you, what I did to Clark, those were terrible ideas. I just . . . I just wanted you to be safe. I knew that if you hated me, if you wanted nothing to do with me, you would be safe. If you left of your choice, if you left because of me, you wouldn’t come back.

“I don’t regret it. Perhaps I should. Actually, I know I should. But I don’t. I’m not a good person, Dick. I never was. I was just . . . I was just fooling everyone around me, and me most of all.”

“Bruce – ,” Dick says, totally at a loss to what he needs to say to that.

“I’m just like him,” Bruce says, his voice . . . small is the only word for it. Dick has never heard Bruce sound like that before.

“Just like who?” Dick asks, confusion coloring his voice.

“You know who I mean.” Bruce says and for a moment Dick doesn’t and then it hits like ice.

Actually, that doesn’t fully cover it. Dick feels like he has been pushed under the coldest water in the world and left there for a thousand years. He cannot believe Bruce said those words. He cannot believe Bruce could even think those words. Well, that’s not quite the truth. He can believe it, he just can’t comprehend it.

“How?” Dick says. “How you are in any way, shape, or form like the fucking  _ Joker _ ?”

“I killed him-“

“No, that was fuckin’ Doomsday.”

“He wouldn’t have been in that situation if not for me.”

“Yes, he would have been. It was a giant monster halfway between Metropolis and Gotham City. Superman wouldn’t have stayed away from that.”

“You don’t know the full story.”

“I don’t need to, I can already tell. Superman was a good man, but he was a grown man that could make his own choices and he chose to be there. You didn’t force him to be there, he would have been there with or without your fight. So unless you had a hand in the creation of Doomsday, you are not in any way responsible for his death.”

Bruce looked at him with such sad and patronizing eyes that Dick felt a rise of guilt and anger in him that only Bruce could really bring out. “You just don’t understand, Dick.”

“What don’t I understand? Your obvious fucking issues? ‘Cause I don’t.”

Bruce sighed. “I made mistakes, Dick, and they all led to this moment right here.”

“Who are you talking about? Clark or me?”

“I need to go now,” Bruce said. “Martha is having a wake at the farm. You’re invited if you want to go.”

He leaves Dick standing there, feeling like things just cracked even more in his family.

*

Dick thinks he is probably the last person to arrive at the wake. Alfred had left the car behind for him, while he and Bruce got another ride somehow.

The house is filled to the brim with people, talking and discussing about the person Clark Kent was. He sounded like he was a truly good man. It’s so different from Jason’s wake. Bruce didn’t have any friends, Alfred probably didn’t have a personal life, Dick had superficial friends but not one’s that he actually interacted with on a personal level, and Jason was a good kid, but he was also an aggressive one that had trouble really connecting people.

(Jason and Bruce were a lot alike in ways that made sure they fought constantly.)

No one came to Jason’s wake, he didn’t even have one unless you count Dick and Bruce screaming at each other about what happened. Dick had been trying to comfort Bruce in the beginning and then it ended with Dick screaming that he hated Bruce. He’s pretty sure Bruce was trying to get him to say it, have someone else hate him as well.

He finds Martha Kent with relative ease. He’s not sure why he wants to find her, but something inside him tells him to find her. Father is a complicated word for Dick, one that means both John Grayson and Bruce Wayne. Mother is much easier to define.

It’s Mary Grayson. It’s her lullabies, her hugs, her smiles, the way she always smelled faintly of cinnamon and sugar because she loved snickerdoodles. There’s something about Martha Kent that makes Dick think of her. It’s hard to explain, but she just does. She’s in the kitchen, alone, looking at the plates of food that everyone has brought as they entered her home.

“Hi,” he says awkwardly with a tight smile and to her credit, on the day she is burying her son, she actually manages to give him one back. That doesn’t change the slightly questioning look she gives him because she doesn’t seem to be able to place him into her son’s life.

“My name is Dick. I’m a . . . I’m Bruce’s son,” he says to clear it up, and it’s strange how relieved saying those words make feel. It’s been five years and too many emotions, but some basic facts don’t change.

That questioning look turns into utter shock and surprise. Bruce Wayne doesn’t have a son, much less two, if you ask people. It’s on public record and nothing illegal was done in Bruce’s adoption, and it’s even on Bruce’s Wikipedia page, but somehow, over time, people just forgot about him and Jason. The papers reported Jason’s death as a car accident, but even that was done with remarkably little fanfare. Bruce had enough money to funnel some into disconnecting himself from his children.

“Oh,” Martha said. “Bruce didn’t say you were coming.”

Bruce didn’t say he existed. Still, Dick ignored the implications and continued talking. “We haven’t really been talking much.”

Martha looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry. That must be hard.”

Dick shrugged, trying to look casual and knowing that he didn’t. “We’re figuring it out. There’s just some issues between us.”

Martha looked him straight in the eyes. “You need to, before it’s too late.”

Dick could feel the ghosts of Clark and Jason hovering over this conversation. For some reason, though he didn’t know why, he felt he could tell her about Jason, felt that she should know about Jason. Make her feel less alone, make Dick feel less alone, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was saying, before he could really think about it, “I had a brother. He died. That’s why there are issues.”

Martha’s filled up with such sympathy and understanding, Dick almost couldn’t stand it. Before she could say anything, Dick continued on, knowing if he stopped, he would never get the courage to say it again.

“I know you don’t want to hear it’ll all be okay or that it’ll get easier, because right now you don’t want it to be okay or easier and you shouldn’t have to. You lost him and the fact of it one day being normal or not wrong that he’s not alive terrifies you and. . . . Okay, I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say, but I do know I want to say this and that is you will still miss him. You won’t ever stop and you’ll be glad about it because some things aren’t meant to be forgotten and some people aren’t meant to be gone. Not my brother, not your son.”

Dick stopped, his breath panting and his eyes filled with tears, because it just hit him how much he  _ missed _ Jason. He wanted him back.

Before he realized it, Martha Kent was hugging him.

It’s feels really nice. Dick didn’t realize how much he missed hugs. Bruce wasn’t a very tactile person, but Alfred and Jason were. Well, actually, Jason wasn’t. Just around Dick.

Dick takes a deep breath and finds his head resting in the crook of Mrs. Kent’s neck. He does not want to bother this woman on the day of her son’s funeral, but she’s holding onto him as tightly as he’s holding on to her, and he knows that what she needs is someone who  _ understands _ .

Though that person isn’t really Dick. He hopes Bruce talks to her. He thinks it could truly help them both.

It seems like hours, but Dick knows it’s only a few minutes before she pulls away. “So tell me about your brother,” she says, in a thick voice, staring particularly hard at some greenish casserole.

“Jason was . . . Jason was a thick-headed asshole who cared so much about everyone and everything and he refused to accept that something’s are impossible.”

Mrs. Kent laughs at that. Dick continues on. “He was brash and impatient and kind and always full of life.”

Mrs. Kent nods, her smile tight and watery. Dick could say so much more about Jason, about how it still feels wrong that he’s dead and gone. Jason always seemed immortal, that life couldn’t function without him.

It was scary to realize that it could.

“What,” Dick says, the words lumpy and strange on his tongue, “what was your son like?”

Martha is silent for what feels like forever, but before she simply says, “He was everything I could have ever wanted.”

Dick nods. He should ask more.

He knows he can’t.

Dick smiles at her again, squeezes her shoulder, and then moves back into the crowd.

He finds an empty spot on a couch, sits down and stays there as people talk and reminisce all around them about Clark Kent and what a good kid he was and God, such a shame, poor Martha.

He stays there until people start to leave slowly, until it’s just him sitting on the couch, Alfred in a chair, and Martha and Bruce nowhere to be seen. Clark’s girlfriend had left with Wonder Woman, leaning against her and borrowing her strength, as they made their way somewhere Dick doesn’t know.

Eventually, it’s just him and Alfred, back in their old, companionable silence.

Alfred gets up to start cleaning the living room, and Dick joins him. He smiles. “Thank you, my boy.” Dick just nods.

He brings the collection of some left-behind utensils towards the kitchen while he hears the low murmur of voices.

Without even thinking about it, he moves closer.

“I didn’t know you had a son,” he hears Martha say.

"Yes," Bruce replies brusquely. "I'm surprised you didn't, I have to admit. I don't hide it."

"We don't care much about celebrities here in Smallville unless they're in the movies. Well, maybe the townies do," Martha chuckles at that, clearly trying to lighten the mood. Dick can imagine Bruce's forced slight smile, clear as day. "So I never knew about Dick." Dick hears her take a breath and then say, "Or Jason."

"Yes," Bruce curtly answers. "I had two sons. Jason died in a bombing while doing charity work in Ethiopia."

"Did he?" Martha asks. "Or am I correct by thinking that Batman and Robin were more connected to each other than just being partners?"

"Martha. . . ." Bruce begins to say.

"Just tell me," she asks, voice watery and tight. "How did you find the light?"

Dick doesn't think he's breathing while he waits for Bruce to answer. He isn't sure how long they wait before finally, "I didn't."

Dick doesn't know why he thought it would be something different. He feels a light touch on his shoulders and he whirls around. Alfred is looking at him, sadness in his eyes.

“It’s not because of you, dear boy. No one could have saved him after Master Jason.”

“Superman did,” Dick forces out.

“ _ Clark Kent _ did not. He merely showed your father for the first time in a long time that there was a path out of the darkness. But you are the one who needs to lead him.”

Does Dick really want this burden?

He closes his eyes and thinks of his father’s smile.

Yeah. He thinks he does.

*

Martha invites them to stay the night and none of them can get out of it. Dick attempts to tell her he can just get a hotel room, but she refuses to hear it. Bruce falls into the same trap. He doesn’t think Alfred even  _ tried _ though.

The farmhouse technically has enough rooms for them all to have a bed, but one of those beds would be Clark’s and no one is ready for that. So Bruce and Alfred each get a guest room and Dick finds himself on the couch, staring up at the dark ceiling as the warm Kansas night fills with screaming insects.

When he was younger, the circus would go through a lot of small towns in the middle of nowhere. He would often fall asleep in places where there was nothing more than a few thousand people scattered around. But then Gotham happened.

And now, Dick finds himself a city boy, with the tight clustering of buildings his own circus that he performs the greatest act of his life every new night. He’s gotten use to the one place to sleep every night, the cloud and smog of the city around him.

And he doesn’t hate it. He loves it, in fact. He can’t imagine giving it up and he doesn’t want too.

There’s just a strange pang of realizing that he really is no longer that little boy.

The house creaks around him, the old bones forever settling. The old couch is comfortable, insanely so. Feels like a dream, but no matter how hard he tries, Dick can’t slip into sleep. He tosses and turns, and eventually he has to admit defeat and get up.

He heads outside, and takes a deep breath.

He does love the city, but it is nice to breath non-polluted air.

Dick sits down the front stoop and looks up at the night sky, bright with stars that he never sees. He sighs deeply. When he was younger, his mother had told him that stars were all his ancestors and everyone who ever loved him looking down on him and watching him, making sure that he was safe and sound.

He wonders which stars are his parents. Which are his grandparents, Grayson and Loyd and Wayne.

Which is Jason.

And he wonders where were their stars when they so desperately needed to be saved.

And where was Clark’s?

Dick is suddenly filled with the sudden urge to scream loudly until this good of stars and grief, and before he can even think about it, he's walking away from the house, bare feet pounding on grass as he moves far away from the house.

Moves until he's standing in front of a grave.

Clark's grave. It's a good thirty minutes away from the Kent farm, and he didn't even notice. He falls down on his knees in front of it, staring with wide eyes.

His feet are cut up, bleeding and hurting now that Dick is coming back to himself, but he’s dealt with far worse. He raises a hand and touches the gravestone, his fingers lightly grazing the name, the date, and the short epitaph.

_ ‘Here lies a loving son.’ _

Jason’s said _ ‘But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God."’ _

It was Luke 18:16. It was the only Bible quote that Dick knew.

He wonders wherever Jason and Clark are now, they’re happy. He wants them to be happy.

He lays his hand on the cool dirt that covers Clark’s grave and takes a deep breath, blinking his eyes to prevent the building tears from pouring out.

“Didn’t know you,” he starts to say, his throat choked up and his voice cracking. “But I really wish I did. You seem like you were a really good person.” He has to blink harder. “You were making him see a light that he lost a long time ago.” He shakes his head. “But this isn’t about him. I’m sorry you had to die.”

It’s beyond inadequate. Dick has no idea what else he’s supposed to say here. “Say hi to my mom and dad? Look out for my little brother, he wants to right every wrong he sees?” But Dick has also been good at companionable silences. He draws his knees up to his chest and sits for a period of time that feels like both ten minutes and ten hours before Bruce sits down next to him, wraps an arm around him, and they stare at the gravestone together without saying a word.

It’s not enough.

But it’s a damn good start.

*

The sky is turning light by the time they leave the cemetery. Dick is exhausted, though he fell asleep for parts of the night. Bruce's solid breathing had been a soothing lullaby.

Bruce practically manhandles him into the car, and tsks when he sees his feet. He's getting too much like Alfred in his old age. He thinks he actually says that out loud if Bruce's soft laugh is anything to go by. He's driven back to the Kent farm, and Bruce carries him inside, lays him in the bed that Bruce had spent the night and that still smells like his soap. Dick buries his head in the pillows and breathes in his father's scent.

He hears bustling and feels the sharp sting of ointment on his feet, but it isn't good enough to keep him awake and Dick slides back into sleep.

*

He wakes up at three in the afternoon. The smells in the kitchen waft through the house and Dick's stomach is rumbling in desperation to get something inside it.

His feet are carefully managed. He hisses when he stands up, the pain flaring to life, but whoever took care of him did a great job since the pain only lingers for a few minutes.He stumbles out into the living room, where he sees Bruce and Martha talking and Alfred humming in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he mumbles. He’s a loss for what to do, so he gestures with his hands. “Sorry for . . . everything.”

“It’s no trouble, honey,” Martha says. “I’m just glad you woke up in time to eat something before you had to go.”

Dick blinks. “Go?”

“We’re headed back to Gotham tonight,” Bruce says lazily as he reads the local paper. Dick opens his mouth to ask him what gave him the right to make that decision, but then closes it. Not Bruce’s fault Dick slept so late, and he probably does have business to get back to. “You’re welcome to stay here, of course,” undercutting more of Dick’s first argument, “but I thought it would be much easier if you came to Gotham and then took a bus to Blüdhaven.”

“Yeah,” Dick says, and then a sudden swoop of bravery passes through him, “or I could stay in Gotham for a few days.”

Bruce’s head jerks up, eyes widening in surprise. “You could,” he responds slowly, “if that’s what you really want.”

Dick gives a decisive nod. “It is.”

*

They take Bruce’s private jet back to Gotham, and Dick does his best not to fidget in awkwardness the entire way there. He actually manages to succeed for the most part, stares out the window and looks out over the pretty countryside billow. Bruce is reading documents for work, and Alfred is rereading Sherlock Holmes for what must be the thousandth time

It’s surprisingly peaceful, and Dick doesn’t feel any foreboding when the plane lands in Gotham and they disembark, nor when they drive to the lake house.

Dick misses the manor, but that burnt down right around the time that Jason died and Dick left. He doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t want to ask.

He’d only been to the lake house a few times when he was younger. Bruce had only taken him there when he needed to heal after a bad fight, and Dick had skipped rocks across the lake while Alfred took care of his father. It was a quiet place, peaceful, but not very comforting. The glass had made it feel cold and remote.

“When are you going to rebuild the Manor?” he asks. 

Bruce shrugs. “I’ve gotten in contact with some contractors. It’s going to be a process.”

He’s sure it’s physically going to be a process, but Dick can see that Bruce really means emotionally it’s going to take time for him to rebuild those roots, but that’s okay. Dick is just proud that he’s willing to do so.

“You know,” Dick beings to say, looking out across the lake. He can almost hear his own childish laughter. He had been a boy who saw his parent’s die, so it was never innocent at the ways of the world, but the grief only tinged it, not swallow it. “I think Jason would be proud of us.” He blinks, tries to clear the tears that cloud his eyes. Bruce starts, turns to look at him with wide eyes. “We fucked up a few times on the way here, but we did manage to get to a good place.”

Bruce slowly nods. “Yeah, I think he would be.” He sighs deeply. “We got to keep trying. That was Jason. He always tried, no matter how hard it was or how much the odds were stacked against him. He fought as hard as he possibly could. I always admired that about him. And  _ that’s _ how we make him proud.”

Dick gives up and lets the tears fall.

“He was a good brother,” he chokes out. “I wish I had gotten the chance to tell him that.”

Bruce puts a strong hand on Dick's shoulder and squeezes. "He knew."

*

Dick goes out into Gotham the next day. The old streets and buildings that were his own personal playground as a kid makes him smile, the memories, both good and bad bombarding him.

He wanders around the city, not planning anything specific, but just enjoying being back home.

He also notices he's being followed, and his mouth twists in a smile as he images the kind of person tracking him. He wonders what kind of fight he could pick with them, and he manages to trick them into an alleyway where he turns around and sees . . . a kid.

Small, black hair, blue eyes, clutching a camera in one hand and a skateboard strapped on his back.

"Who the fuck are you?" slips out of Dick's mouth before he can stop himself.

The kid shifts. "My name is Tim Drake." He licks his lips and takes a deep breath. "And I want to talk to you about Robin."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanmix For "when you coming home"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20308501) by [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake)


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